


Midnight at Noon

by Leidolette



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Parody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 22:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: Or: That One Fucking Twilight Zone Episode





	Midnight at Noon

Though it was summer, the weeks Mr. Goodsir spent in the mutineer's camp were some of the coldest of the whole damned expedition.

Part of it, he knew, must be physical. The tents were a poor substitute for the heavy wood of the ship's walls, and he saw his breath puff white in front of him more nights in bed than not. And then there was his being itself; deprived of essential nutrients, poisoned, and starved, the wonderful machine that was the human body would decrease any energy expenditures that it could and turn cold and sluggish in its fight for survival -- and his was no different. 

But another part of this bone-deep cold must be metaphysical in nature. The milk of human kindness was a wonderful balm against the elements, and there was none of that to be found here.

Not a drop.

It must have been the cold that woke him that night too, weeks after his abduction. Try as he might, he couldn't go back to sleep. He rose from the cot and put on his boots to stamp and pace some feeling back into his feet. It did little good.

A fit of claustrophobia hit him. He was suddenly too surrounded by the walls of the horrid little tent in this horrid little camp filled with these horrid little men. He pushed aside the flaps of his tent and staggered out, desperate to get away from it all.

The wind cut through his jacket instantly, leeching away much of the body heat he'd managed to generate. Goodsir pressed on anyways, anxious to escape the dread permeating the camp. The numbness that spread over his cheeks and tips of his ears was preferable to that, for a little while anyways.

The wind was stronger when he reached the top of the first of the low rocky hills outside the camp. Shivers ran through his body constantly now, but he pushed on. When he crested the next hill, he blinked his eyes in surprise. It was the pack ice, laid out in front of him like a white blanket. Surely the camp hadn't been this close to the shore when he'd first gone to sleep that night? Surely not.. but suddenly couldn't quite remember.

Wild hope rose in him. If this was the southern end of King William's land, then perhaps there could be a lead out there. He broke into a jog, the most he could manage with his knees aching terribly from scurvy and the cold. If he could just find open water, they might have a chance. He could slip away and find the Captain and they all could make it through, he just knew it.

The frigid air burned his lungs. The wind whipped away his hat into the darkness. The cold sapped at his very life force. But if he could just find that open ocean--

The ice gave way beneath him and Goodsir plunged into the freezing black water below. His last scream was only a stream of bubbles.

* * *

"Ice."

Mr. Bridgens dabbed the cloth gently over Goodsir's brow as the man became fitful in his delirium. Beyond what small dots of sweat the cloth may have picked up from Goodsir's face, the cloth had not been dampened with any cooling water. They had not had that for days.

This morning they'd killed the last of the camels, and passed around an upturned helmet filled with its blood in place of a water ration. Now, it was just the men, the sand, and the mirage hope of a rescue that would never come. 

"...found the pack ice," Goodsir muttered. He was shivering, but from a burning fever. 

"He's been in the grip of hallucinations for some time now, sir," Bridgens said to Crozier, who had just pulled aside the tent flaps and stepped inside, out of the punishing rays of the sun.

Colonel Crozier, current ranking officer of what remained of the British desert exploratory corps, turned his sunburned, peeling face to the dying man in bed. Goodsir was a good man, he didn't deserve this end. Yet -- good god -- Crozier nearly envied him. 

"Let him sleep," rasped Captain Crozier through dry, cracked lips. "Let him keep his dream of the cold for as long as he may have it."

The sight that he'd just left outside formed again in his mind's eye. The gaunt faces of his men, and then, outside the pitiful circle of their tents, nothing but gently rolling hills of sand stretching out to the horizon in every direction.

"It won't be much longer now."

**Author's Note:**

> _Two icebound ships trapped in a years-long winter. A platoon stranded in a sea of dunes under a burning sun. Here we see the victims of the dark side of the spirit of exploration. All desperate men, driven by arrogance and ignorance into regions they did not understand. Regions like... The Twilight Zone._


End file.
